The Beth chronicles
by Magpieblue
Summary: Have you ever wondered what Beth wrote about in her journal. This will follow Beth's story, as she navigates a new world through quiet observation and sometimes quirky musings, found only on the pages of her diary. Eventual Bethyl.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I do not own the walking dead or any of its characters. This will remain cannon up to a point, but rest assured, I like happy endings.**

To me she is just "June Bug." I was hoping to have learned her name by now, but the girl threw me on her desk a week ago, and that is where I have stayed... Waiting for the moment when she casts a glance in my direction. I desperately long to share with her the old man's loving inscription, and I wish beyond measure for her to share with me the stories of a world beyond these four walls... Her world.

Whenever she is here, June bug spends her time reading, or playing music on a guitar, that when not in use sits idol in the oppisite corner of the colourful room from where I lay discarded. I listen to her angelic voice as she sits on her bed, singing along with the cords she strums, and it is within these moments that I catch a small glimpse of the pure warmth and hopeful joy that gleams within her soul. She is a beautiful story yet to be told.

Alas, I am left only to daydream of the magnificent words she might someday scribe across my skin. Over time I see her weaving those words into a tightly knit tapestry of a life well lived, and I may one day know who June bug really is. The wind blows through the open window and I can almost feel the ink tickling my fibers as I envision the young girl's hand gliding the pen along my parchment with a gentle touch. Not yet knowing if what I imagine is correct because it is another with whom June bug shares her inner-most thoughts while I lay empty, collecting dust and wishing it was me.

* * *

 _"Goodbye old friend. I will never forget you."_

Beth sighs as she closes the overstuffed notebook, quite possibly for the last time, and then wraps an elastic band around its ratty cover. It is never easy for the quiet farmgirl to say goodbye, and the truth of it is, she has been silently dreading this moment since she first infused her thoughts onto the notebooks welcoming pages two years earlier. Ever so carefully, the young girl pulls out a box from under her bed and blows dust off of the cardboard lid, before opening it up and running her hands over the many notebooks, diaries, and binders hidden inside.

She pushes a stray honey blond curl out of her face, and begins to reorganize the contents so as to make room for her lastest journal. Once the book is safely placed in its new home, she closes the lid and slides it back under the space between her matteress and the floor.

Sighing once again, Beth takes a seat at her desk and turns her attention to the birthday gift her daddy had given her a week prior. Her blues eyes tentatively gloss over the stiff leather binding, and she mindlessly trails her fingers down the green velvet ribbon meant to mark the pages, and then over the silver lines embossed on its cover. The book is quite safisticated actually. Far superior than any journal she has owned thus far. More pages too. But no matter how hard it is to say goodbye to the old, starting fresh is positively terrifying. It is like sharing everything about yourself right down to who you are on a base level with a complete stranger. There is no history here, no shared experience. The book is empty and devoid of life.

It is only when she cracks the spine that she sees how mistaken she is. She is overcome with emotion. Instantly a lump forms in the back of her throat and a tear drop falls, crinkling the paper slightly, as she smiles down at her daddy's words that are written in black ink on the very first page.

 _"To my dearest June bug. Happy birthday._

 _I know, I know, you said no presents this year, but what kind of father would I be if I didn't at least acknowledge how far you've come, and all the hard work you put in to getting here. You know as well as I do that addiction is a beast not easily tamed, and can take a lifetime to conquer, but you are leaps and bounds ahead of me my sweet girl. You make your momma and I so proud. We look into a future when you will no longer be living under our roof, and as sad as it makes us, we rest easy in the knowledge that you are destined for happiness. Years ago I came across this empty journal in an old box of your grandmother's things. I saved it because I knew there would come a time when you would finally be ready to fill it with the heartfelt words of love and inspiration that you give so freely to everyone around you. Trust yourself honey, for you are wise beyond your years, and always remember that no matter what trials life thows your way... You will always have a home to come back to. -Love Dad"_

"I love you too daddy," Beth whispers into the air. She knows he worries about her. They all worry about her. No matter how much time goes by, or how many books she fills, it will always linger in the back of their minds. The gigantic elephant in the room, hiding behind the face of a seventeen year old girl who can just barely hold it together. Beth closes her eyes for the briefest of moments, taking a shaky breath as she prepares to rip the bandaid off of an old wound. It is the story that begins each and every journal she has ever written. No sense in blanketing over it. This is after all, a critical turning point in her life.

Picking out a pen from the purple mug on her desk, she places it between her fingers and begins to write.

 _" April 15th, 2008_

 _Hello. We don't know each other yet, but we are going to be great friends. I can feel it in my bones already. Let me properly introduce myself. My name is Beth Greene, and I live on a farm just outside senoia, Georgia. I feel it only fair to warn you right from the beginning of things, that I am screwed up. I live here with my momma Annette, and my daddy Hershel. My brother Shawn also lives here, but spends a great deal of his time these days fixin' up cars at his friend's garage in town, while he works towards his mechanic's licence._

 _My half sister Maggie will be coming home next week. Soon as finals are finished. She plans to spend the summer exploring her options. At least that is what she told Daddy when he asked why she wasn't staying in Athens to look for work now that she is graduating. I look forward to seeing her. We haven't spent a whole lot of time together since she headed off to school four years ago, and I miss her terribly._

 _Anyway we moved here from Atlanta when I was six, shorty after my abduction. They call it a miracle that I was found alive. I don't really remember much about that week, only that I can no longer tolerate small spaces for any length of time. What I do remember is the strange mixture of relief and bone crushing sorrow, displayed on my Momma's face when she and Daddy rushed into the hospital room after the police had found me._ _The image_ _is unrelenting, and will forever be burned into the forefront of my brain._

 _Life moves on though. Daddy hired Otis and his wife Patricia to help run the farm, and Daddy went back to what he did best. Turns out Senoia is a perfect place for a veternarian such as my daddy to set up shop, and slowly things went back to a new normal... Almost._

 _I started to have nightmares. Sometimes even now I wake up gasping for air, and shaking. By the time I was eight I was cutting myself. I don't know what made me think to do it that first time, but when I did, I felt closer to normal than I had felt in a long time. It also quieted my dreams some. I can't explain why or how, but it took the away the anxiety, and the pain that still lingered._ It felt good. I _t made me feel clean._

 _When I was ten, Shawn walked into the bathroom unannounced and caught me with a razor blade in my hand. He screamed bloody murder, as I chased after him down the hall, thin red lines running horizontal up my thigh as I did. Shouting for him to stop. Trying to explain that it wasn't what he thought._ _That this made it better. That it made me better._

 _I remember the sadness and guilt it caused for Daddy when Shawn told him what I had been doing. He started going back to AA after that, and I started to see Dr. Stone twice a week. She was the one who gave me my first journal. A small binder that she asked me to write in everytime I felt the urge to harm myself. She didn't understand that it helped either._

 _For Daddy it was worse._

 _But even still, he has been sober again for the past three years now, and I haven't cut myself in eight months. We both struggle, but it is our struggles that have brought our family closer. Maybe I won't truly understand until I'm a parent myself, but I see guilt and saddness lingering there behind his eyes sometimes. Momma and Shawn's too. And I still feel responsible for it. They baby me now. They treat me like glass, and walk on eggshells around me. I hate it!_

 _God I can't wait till Maggie comes home._


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Oh my goodness, I didn't think anyone would read this, so thank you to those who did. I know the first chapter was a little rough, but I have never done this before, so consider that the practice round. LOL. I hope to do a little better with this one. And by the way, Thank you for reviewing. It made me smile, and gave me the courage to try again:)**

Maybe it's June bug's so called imperfections that lends itself so acutely to her poignant thoughts and keen observations of the world in which she lives. She says she is too broken for the fast pace of a life outside her small town, and so she takes pleasure in absorbing the small bits of life found right here in Senoia. Things others take for granted or scurry on passed without blinking an eye at, June bug sees in poetic detail. And she uses wonderful descriptors so that I too can know the importance of a strawberry ice-cream that dances across her lips on a warm Georgia night; Or savour the delectably sweet southern goodness, and the tangy zest of a cold lemonade on a sunday afternoon.

Quite often we go to the swimming hole because it is her most favourite spot on the farm. And it is with stunning accuracy that she sketches the panoramic view before her, as though she's sketching it by heart. Right down to the frayed edges of the knotted rope swing that hangs above the still water. She needs to remember how it looks to her now, in this light, not tommorows. And I am beginning to wonder if it is a fear of change that propels her to document every aspect of her life so openly. It may sound bad to say, but if that is the case I am glad for it.

June bug and I are kindred spirits, and without her heartfelt words, I would never have known what it is to have love. A love for music, and nature, and family that runs so deeply within her core, it wraps itself around every word this damaged girl writes. It flows through the ink of her pen onto the lines of my paper, and I too begin to come alive with that love.

Beside her father's inscription on the very first page, she has glued a picture of her parents on their wedding day. She lables it true love.

On a page labeled "Jimmy," she places a dried and flattened blue bell that he picked for her while they waited for the bus on a rainy day last week.

And saved from a carnivel that swept through town a few days back, is a row of funny faced pictures Maggie and Beth took in a photobooth.

These are her treasures, her keepsakes, her heart. And I am honored to protect them.

* * *

The room is silent but for the constant tick of the clock on the wall, and the quiet conversation taking place in the room adjacent to where Beth sits with her mother and her sister, and look of utter shock upon her face.

"Otis, I would feel better if you and Patricia stayed here on the farm until they get a handle on this thing. That goes for you to Jimmy. You can sleep on the couch, at least until your parents get home safe."

"Thank you sir," the boy says glumly.

Hershel gently pats the kid on the back, and gives him somber nod. He then turns his gaze to the livingroom, where his youngest daughter continues to stare in disbelief at the snowy picture on the television screen. It will be good for her to have him here, Hershel thinks to himself. "Don't mention it son," he say out loud.

Beth feels frozen to the spot as she struggles to internalize the final images of the last broadcast. All those people...

She should have listened more closely to the strange reports that started coming out of New York days ago... the killings and random acts of horrible violence, but it just seemed so far away... A passing blip on the five o'clock news, It wasn't until yesterday when CNN went black did her family really start to take notice. Now Atlanta... My God!

Beth peers at the door, not able to help the worried knot twisting in the pit of her gut. She wishes Shawn were here to make light of it, and put her mind at ease. Seeking comfort, the timid girl quickly glances to Maggie and her Momma who sit curled together on the sofa. And she is disappointed when her own fears are reflected back at her through their eyes.

"June bug, could you please go and get some clean blankets from the linen closet for our guests."

"Sure thing Daddy," she says with a weak smile. "Oh and Daddy..."

"What is it Bethy?"

"Thank you." Beth looks to Jimmy when she says it, but it is her father she hugs and kisses on the cheek.

Beth returns from upstairs with a stack of blankets, and finds her momma wearing away the floorboards as she paces the room. Annette stops only to peer out the window. Nobody is sayin' anything, but they are all thinking it. Shawn should've been back ages ago.

Grabbing the journal from the rocking chair, Beth heads to the door. "Where are you going Bethy?" Hershel asks in a quiet voice. "I just need some air Daddy. Thought I'd wait for Shawn on the porch."

"Do you want me to go with you?" Jimmy pipes up.

"Thank you, but no," She smiles back. "I'd rather be alone if its all the same."

"Don't go far," Annette says, and the concern plastered on her face nearly breaks Beth's heart.

Drawn back across the room, Beth threads her fingers through Annette's, in an attempt to reasure her. "I will stay on the porch Momma. I promise." Then giving her mother a gentle hug she says, "Don't worry. Shawn'll be back soon."

\

 _May 1'st, 2008_

 _"How can a city so large fall so quickly?_

 _From what we can gather it's some sort of desease. An epidemic similar to rabies, but a hundred times more aggressive. It's causing people to go crazy. Making them do things so horrible my mind can't even wrap around it. Whatever this thing is, it's moving fast. Atlanta is gone. And all I can think is how long before it comes to Senoia?_

 _Daddy and Otis have spent most of the afternoon checking the fences and herding the livestock closer to the main house. He plans for us to hunker down here until this thing blows over, and he is confident that with so many sick a cure will come quickly._

 _Momma tries to ease our minds by telling us how nice it will be to spend some good old fashioned Mother, daughter bonding time with Maggie and myself, but her words fall flat and I know not even she believes them._

 _Cell service is down, and my brother is still out there._

 _Damn it Shawn! Only you would decide to go camping on the one weekend that the country goes to shit. Please come home safe. I love you."_


End file.
